


The Great Homestuck Beach Episode

by TheBramblefish



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff, M/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, i mean lots of people die but it's not permanent, some days you just have to treat yourself to a beach episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 23:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5068378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBramblefish/pseuds/TheBramblefish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is literally nothing but 2k words of self-indulgent fluff via the classic beach episode trope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Homestuck Beach Episode

Your name is Dave Strider and this is not how you wanted your Friday night to go. Instead of acting like a normal-ass twenty two year old, you’re crouched by a nasty ass toilet, holding your sister’s hair back as she encores the last three hours of drinks. It’s hard being the responsible one. It’s hard and nobody understands.

Well, nobody except for the guy in the stall next to you angrily coaxing someone called “TZ” through evacuating their stomach. Rose slouches into your arms, sighing heavily as she does.

“Dave,” she says, her breath fetid with acid and alcohol.

“Rose.” You say, stoically enduring her drunken fumes.

“I’m done, Dave. I can’t do this.”

“What?”

“I’m done, David. I don’t want to be that drunk girl anymore. We were so proud when Roxy got dry and here I am, slipping right into the vacant role of the Alcoholic Lalonde.”

Well shit.

“Well shit, Rose. Okay. Let’s do this.” You say, still stuck somewhere between disbelief and mild disgust because shit her breath is rank. It’s the kind of rancid you only ever associated with the fridge back when you were a kid suffering through Bro’s strange and slightly abusive version of parenting. “Let’s make it happen.” You say, and your sis smiles beatifically, especially for a confessed alcoholic crouched over a grimy toilet in the back of some shitty ass bar in Little Alternia.

You help her to the sinks to wash her hands and face. You’re joined a few moments later by two trolls, one of them the aforementioned TZ. The trolls make an interesting couple- one a blind tealblood, and the other hemanonymous with the nubbiest lil’ fuckin horns you’ve ever seen. It’s a little awkward. A lot awkward. Like a heapin’ helpin’ of Grandma Strider’s homemade awkward.

“Eheh. Congratulations on going sober.” The tealblood says to Rose. Her teeth are wicked sharp, stained deep red by the hard Faygo most trolls love to get fucked up on.

“Ah. Thank you.” Rose replies stiltedly. The troll sniffs delightedly at the air before patting Nubby between the horns and rejoining the fray beyond the door.

“Your friend?” Rose asks, and Nubby sighs like troll God himself just took a massive dump on his whatever-they-call-it- a lawn ring, that’s what it is.

“She’s here with her fucking kismesis. Now, before you attempt to engage in the disturbing human propensity to wax ashen and or pale at anything, do me a huge favor and go fuck yourself.” And with that benediction, Nubby stomps out of the bathroom- ablution block- whatever. You kind of hope he steps on a Lego but whatever, it’s not like you’ll ever see him again.

 

* * *

 

 

Except for the part where you do, because even in Austin it’s a small fuckin' world. Rose and the tealblood are goddamn sober buddies. The troll, Terezi, is actually pretty funny in a violent, caustic way when you get past her tendency to lick absofuckinglutely _everything_. She calls it smell-o-vision and says your eyes are delicious- apparently she really digs red.

So you get to know Terezi pretty well, seeing as she and Rose hang out all the time, and then she has to take it one step further and hook your sister up. The troll’s name is Kanaya Maryam, a jadeblood fashion designer and she and Rose get on like a house on fire. Pretty soon, you’re swimming in a sea of trolls, Terezi and Kanaya are in the same cohort along with Nubby from the bar and nine other trolls you’ve yet to meet. This, combined with Rose’s two tenuous and/or amorous connections means that apparently you’re stuck with the whole cohort, for like, ever.

Which is how you end up at Ambassador Feferi Peixes’ gulf coast beach home, your ass parked next to Roxy and Nubby and a non-boozy drink in hand. Nobody really told you, but your new friends are fucking rock stars in the Alternian Empire; leaders and religious figures and powerhouses both physical, psychic, and political, and if you didn’t grow up with Bro’s particular brand of weirdness this shit would be weird enough to give you a complex. Your pal Nubby? Actually Karkat Vantas, Descendent of the Signless Sufferer, Comforter of the Weeping, Night of the World, Grubloaf of Life, et cetera et cetera. He’s goddamn troll-Jesus and fuck it if he doesn’t have the most amazingly foul mouth you’ve ever encountered in your life.

“So how’s your weird human relation thing?” he huffs around his straw.

“My sis?” You ask, and he shoots you a dour red glare.

“Yes that one. She still on the four-wheeled push cart?” he pauses and slurps noisily at his drink and you shrug.

“Yup, doin’ well.”

“That’s… good.” He says huffily, and you can’t take it anymore.

“Look dude, if you don’t wanna talk you ain’t gotta.” Because fuck if you don’t feel for this guy, struggling to converse in the face of the infamous Strider Cool.

“Oh thank the beasts of the furthest ring and all their shiny horror-terrors.” He growls and devotes himself wholly to ignoring you or finishing his drink, you can’t tell which for sure. He doesn’t say another word until the cranky sea troll with the scarf obsession lures him into the water. Apparently the gill-slits on both sides of his torso and neck are yet another indicator of his messiah-dom.

You kinda get the feeling the guy doesn’t like you at all. You tell Terezi as much, but she just cackles at you.

“Nope.” She grins. “Mr. Cherry Pop just doesn’t know how to interact with real people without shouting. It’s like he was raised in the wild by shouty, angry howlbeasts, instead of a grumpy crab lusus.” She shrugs and scratches at one sharp triangular horn and that's all there is to that.

 

* * *

 

 

That night in one of the many human-friendly rooms you toss and turn before falling into uneasy dreams. In your dream, you’re a knight of goddamn time, and you’re stuck on some godforsaken meteor with your sis and Vantas and TZ and Rose’s girl Friday and one of the other trolls you’ve only met the once, Vriska Serket. You meet up with your human friends and battle the big bad boss skeleton and somehow create a universe and save it all at the same time.

You wake up screaming, visions of death and blood and pain and not a single fucking sugar plum dancing in your head. Fortunately, trolls are firm believers in soundproofing. It’s exactly 3:48 in the morning and it’s the freakiest shit that you just know. Fuck the atomic clock; it’s the Strider clock now. You are fucking precise. You stumble out of the bed and flash step to the kitchen. You’re halfway through a glass of AJ when you hear the creak of footsteps in the hall. Feferi steps quietly into the kitchen; she meets your eyes and sighs deeply, gills and earfins fluttering dejectedly.

“We were wondering if you’d remember.” She says softly, and you raise your glass in a half-hearted and fully ironic toast.

“To the winners.” You say, and down the rest of your juice like a bitter old man nursing a fifth of Jack.

“To the survivors.” She says gently.

“Did you get what you wanted?” You ask her, and she smiles, her teeth a very sharp contrast with her gentle demeanor.

“My eldest sister is dead and Meenah rules Alternia in her place. The weak are no longer killed, but protected. Your actions created a universe in which my dearest friends could live in peace. Also, I am conveniently not dead, which is a pleasant side effect.” She says, earfins flaring in amusement.

“Always a plus.” You agree wryly, and in your head all you can see is your bro pinned to the roof with his own sword like some fucked up Silence of the Lambs extra. But that’s not true anymore- Dirk, your crazy ass bro, is sleeping just down the hall, very much alive. Paradox space is weird.

“What will you do now?” Feferi asks you softly, and you just shrug.

“Fucked if I know.” Your memories of Sburb are still blurry- you fucked around with so many timelines you’re still trying to straighten them out.

“Well, “ Feferi says. “At the risk of sounding cliché, you’ve got nothing but time.”

And you really, really do.

 

* * *

 

By the time the sun rises you’ve got the alpha timeline sorted out- and you don’t know whether to slap John or hug him for the shit he and TZ pulled- and it takes all your strength not to sprint to Karkat’s block and haul him out of the ‘coon yourself. But Karkat hates waking up early, and you’re not even sure that he remembers, fuck you shoulda asked Feferi about that during your little late night feelings jam. Thirty agonizing minutes later Karkat slouches into the kitchen, reaches into the box of coffee beans and eats a handful whole. It’s fucking disgusting, and after you and Rose first managed to alchemize the sweet caffeine giving nectar he’d tried them once and taken to chomping them down like candy, probably just to spite you.

“Jesus, Karkat, you know I hate it when you do that shit.” You say in irritation and Karkat stops cold and oh fuck oh shit this is not how you wanted this to go down.

“Dave?” he asks like he’s just now seeing you for the first time, and as his bright red eyes widen, you realize he kinda is. Because the trolls do remember; apparently every last one of them remembers Sburb like you do now.

You slam your AJ glass down on the counter and pull him into your arms like a scene out of one of his shitty romcoms. Your first kiss with your matesprit/boyfriend/whatever in the universe you created together tastes like coffee grinds and apple juice and morning breath and you don’t fucking care because it’s Karkat and you didn’t even know how much you missed him, how much you fucking loved him until right this very fucking now. When you finally part his eyes are watery with red tears and both of you are breathing heavily and your lips feel swollen and red and his probably do too. It’s awesome.

“Let’s skip today.” You say lowly. “They won’t mind if we skive off and spend the whole day in bed, I’m sure of it. “

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go; I've got a lifetime of shit to catch you up on anyway.”

You grab his dark hand and pull him from the kitchen, passing Vriska on your way out.

“And where are you two going?” She barks, and you flip her off.

“Not now Spider wench, I got sloppy interspecies makeouts to do.” Vriska gapes at you- you can feel her vision 8fold hitting the back of your neck. The last thing you hear from her before slamming the door to your room shut is a scandalized gasp. Then Karkat is in your arms and you’re alone and life is fucking good.

You cuddle up together on the bed afterwards, sated and blissfully happy, and Karkat looks up at you with a toothy smile.

“Took you long enough.” He huffs, and you rub at the base of his horns with your free hand.

“Make it up to you?” you say into his hair, and he shifts.

“Come to see me when we go back to Alternia.” He says, pressed up against you warm and firm and gloriously alive.

“It’s a fucking date.” You grin, and damn but you are just so madly in love with this nerd. You’re in love and you’re alive and you’re the king of the goddamn universe.  

**Author's Note:**

> So Karkat's titles were drawn from elanorpam's amazing series Cultstuck. Go read it right now my children.


End file.
